Site dropped from Superfund list

Ex-GE acreage near Mohawk River never polluted, state says

Updated 9:01 am, Friday, November 9, 2012

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Site dropped from Superfund list.

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Site dropped from Superfund list

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ROTTERDAM — After being on a state list of industrially polluted land for nearly three decades, a patch of woods near a former General Electric Co. plant close to the Mohawk River is being taken off that list by the state, which found the property was never polluted to begin with.

Located just south of Rotterdam Square mall, the property has been a state Superfund pollution site since 1988, but years of subsequent investigation have determined that "no disposal of hazardous substances occurred on these undeveloped parcels," according to DEC. GE used the plant to make insulating materials.

That was welcome news to property owner and real estate developer Robert Iovinella, who with partner Timothy Larned bought the 30 acres in 2004 from the insulation company, Von Roll USA, which itself had bought the former GE plant and 52-acre site in 1995.

"I commend the state for finally releasing the property from the Superfund list," he said. "This is forest land and there was never any pollution on it."

Delisting will make it simpler and less expensive for Iovinella and Larned to finance and develop plans for the land. The partners are now considering a five-acre retail and office center near Rotterdam to be called Riverview Shopping Plaza, he said.

The men currently own about 22 acres of the 30 acres being delisted by DEC; they sold the other eight acres for a storage center and an office building. Those projects required extensive testing before financing could be obtained. "We have had test wells on our property all this time," Iovinella said.

DEC is crafting a cleanup plan for the 22 acres owned by Von Roll, said Georgeson. The ground and groundwater on that property are contaminated with chemicals including trimethylbenzene, cumene, ethylbenzene, propylbenzene, tricholoroethene and xylene.

While the site presents a "significant threat to public health," the odds of people being exposed to the chemicals are low, because the groundwater is not used for drinking purposes. There is a risk of some chemicals becoming airborne from the ground and moving inside nearby buildings, the state said.

The site is also near the Great Flats aquifer, which is a major source of drinking water for the area.

General Electric, as the property's former owner at the time the pollution occurred, has been paying for testing over the years, and will pay the cost of any cleanup, Georgeson said.

Since the 1980s, GE has paid to remove about 212 tons of contaminated soil, as well as underground and above-ground chemical tanks.